He was speaking random letters into the blue and red toy stethascope around his neck. First, he said the letters to himself. Then, he found our dog under the dining room table to be his audience. When he had enough of that he wandered into the kitchen where I was busy preparing lunch and asked, “How’s your heart, Mommy? Is it clean or is it dirty?” “That’s a good question, little man. Let’s check it,” I answered.
At three he knows that hearts are like teeth, without regular cleaning the plaque builds up. We are unkind to each other. We don’t listen to instructions. We substitute other things for God. The list could go on. All of this just builds up on our hearts and we carry this plaque around with us everyday unless we get a cleaning. If we leave plaque on our teeth, we will lose our teeth. If heart plaque is left untreated, it can kill you (Romans 3:23).
Heart cleanings are different from teeth cleaning though. There are no toothbrushes for cleaning hearts. No one sends us a postcard in the mail to remind us that it’s time for our heart checkup either. It’s in the “Big Boy Instructions” as my brother would say. As “big boys and girls” we know that when something gets dirty it doesn’t clean itself. We have to take the responsibility to make sure that we do what is necessary to get it clean.
The good news is that heart cleanings really aren’t that complicated. Jesus has done everything for us. He paid for the dirt on our hearts when He spilled His blood on the cross for us and rose again from the dead three days later (Romans 5). The only two elements that are needed are 1) humility (being willing to see our heart as God sees it) 2) asking Jesus to was our hearts clean from the dirt that has settled on our heart (1 John 1:9) When we ask Jesus to forgive us of the darkness in our hearts, He washes us clean. Then when God looks at us He only sees the perfection of Jesus. These cleanings are a gift, but when we realize how much the gift costs we won’t want to take the gift lightly. We’ll want to give Jesus our whole life. We’ll want to make sure that our hearts cleaned daily so that our heart will be ready for Him to use.
Having a clean heart is so much more rewarding than having clean teeth. Why not take time for your heart to be cleaned today?
emissions of faith 